The Devil Gets Her Way
by Sci-Fifan95
Summary: The Autobots fail. Quintessa's plan comes to fruition. It does not go as expected.
1. Life

**So, I saw _The Last Knight_ on Tuesday night. Despite the critical thrashing it's received, I actually didn't find it that bad. Out of all the sequels, I actually liked it the most out of all the _Transformers_ films. There were, however, some points I felt were unnecessary or didn't live up to what they could be. In all, though, I would say go see it. It's a fun time.**

 **One last thing before I get into this story: I didn't take notes when I saw the movie. So as a result, some finer details are not as they happen in the movie. This is either because I forgot them, or I decided to adjust them to fit what I wrote here. Also, just a head's up, I didn't proofread this. Don't mind the misspellings you might encounter.**

 **Also: major spoilers for the film. Just an additional warning.**

 **Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro.**

* * *

Edmund Burton was getting too old for this.

So far today, he'd had a young woman kidnapped, harbored a fugitive wanted by every government on Earth, entrusted those two people with the survival of all mankind, and run from MI6 and TRF.

Rather productive day, if he did say so himself.

At last, Burton reached the book he'd searched for far too many years of his life. If circumstances were any different, he'd have taken a moment to appreciate what was in front of him, hidden for so long right under his nose in Trinity Library. But there was no time to appreciate the moment. He had a species to save.

He sat down in the chair, eyes taking in the elegantly written words, beautiful illustrations, and remarkable pages inlaid with gold and silver. He spoke quickly, with purpose, to the annoying American on the other end of the phone. He gave the boy his precious title at last. Said a few words of false praise, and hung up.

Burton hastily took in as much information as he could of Unicron, the approaching Cybertron, and the impending colliding of the two worlds. One would drain the other. One would live, the other would die. That was how it was to be. Either way, someone lost their home. An expected tragedy, in the End of All Times.

He heard sirens getting closer. Time was up, it seemed.

Burton rose—more stiffly than he would have thirty years prior, he noted—and left the Library.

Had he taken but _one_ more moment, he would have seen how the book shimmered with Magic, its pages changing, its words altering, before vanishing with a flash.

* * *

Rare was the day Optimus Prime experienced something new.

For thousands of years, he'd traveled. First, at the beginning of his life, with the second generation of Cybertronian Knights. Then as leader of the Science Division. Then as supreme commander of the Autobots. He'd seen hundreds of thousands of planets, stars, black holes, and, once, even a quasar up close. He had seen what total war looked like, seen what it did to worlds and peoples.

Even so, being inside a building as it fell from the sky was not an event he had experienced before.

Cade, Viviane, and his Autobots tumbled as the massive room fell. Quintessa remained unmoved, surrounded by raw energy. Optimus searched for Megatron. He found him near Quintessa's conduits, gripping to the floor, riding out the free fall. He and Optimus locked optics from across the room—one floating in the air, the other anchored to the ground.

Where once there was once mutual respect and admiration for the other, there was now only hatred.

The room began righting itself, a slow movement that returned gravity to its proper state. Optimus landed heavily on his feet, using the still-tilted room to let him slide downward, toward Megatron and Quintessa. Behind, him, he heard his Autobots following.

The room finished its rotation.

Then he and his Autobots picked up where they left off.

Bumblebee and Hot Rod went left, meeting Nitro Zeus and Barricade head-on. Hound, Drift and Crosshairs went right, cutting off Onslaught and Dreadbot's attempted flank.

Optimus went straight ahead. Right at Megatron.

They clashed together. Blade and cannon, armor and shield, they fought. The two of the three most experienced warriors the Cybertronian race had ever seen. Every attack was calculated. Every assault the first in a sequence of a planned dozen. Every block, parry, and dodge made without thought, without urgency, as they anticipated the other's every move.

It had been this way since the start of the War. And until one of them fell for the last time, or the universe ended due to its own expansion, this was how it would always be.

Megatron knocked away Optimus' blade and brought up his cannon. Optimus was already rolling to the side as Megatron fired his infamous Fusion Cannon—the bane of countless lives over countless years. The shot went wide, blasting a hole into the floor behind him. He retaliated with a shot from the Blaster in his shield.

Unlike him, Megatron simply allowed his heavy armor to absorb the round. He advanced on Optimus again, knocking him back with a kick to the lower chest, his Fusion Cannon coming up once again.

Optimus raised his shield in time to deflect the Cannon's powerful projectile. He went to charge in again.

But Quintessa had other plans.

The command she gave was given with no emotion. No concern. No care. As if it were a matter infinitely beneath her. "Megatron—kill her."

Optimus looked to Viviane at the same time as Megatron. The young human woman was approaching the Staff, avoiding the chaos around her as Cade destroyed miniature drones deployed by Quintessa. He looked back to Megatron. Megatron looked back to him.

They both ran for Viviane.

The room began turning again. Megatron used that to throw Optimus off his feet, continuing on his own, bringing up his Cannon.

Crosshairs, Hound, and Hot Rod chose that moment to intervene, their battles finished. Optimus got up as his three Autobots fought together against the Decepticon leader, protecting Viviane and Cade. Hound used an opening from Hot Rod's Time Blaster to unleash a full burst from his Triple Phalanx. Crosshairs unloaded clips from both of his SMGs into Megatron's back, earning a growl.

But still the Decepticon leader kept going, fighting all three Autobots at once. Optimus opted not to rejoin the fray immediately, instead watching. Waiting for the right moment. When others interfered in the battles between he and Megatron, one of them was bound to leave a part open for the other.

Megatron revealed his when he pointed his Cannon at Crosshairs.

Optimus jumped forward, bringing his sword down. The weapon cleaved through Megatron's armor at its weakest point, severing the arm at the elbow.

Megatron roared, more from rage than pain, and grabbed Optimus' sword. Optimus resisted, but Megatron headbutted him, forcing him down, sparks flying as they slid across the floor. Optimus' own sword cut into the armor at his neck. Even with one arm, Megatron was formidable.

Megatron knew better than others that Optimus was, too.

"We were brothers, once." The words from Megatron were angry and frustrated. Almost sad.

Optimus' respond was hard. "Once."

He twisted, breaking free and throwing off Megatron's balance. Optimus was up on his feet in a split-second. Then with all his considerable might, he kicked Megatron in the gut.

The Decepticon leader flew into the wall, the metal breaking at his impact. Then he fell outside, and Optimus lost sight of him.

Then it was just him, his Autobots, and Quintessa.

He didn't need to say a word to get his Autobots to form up with him, nor did he need to provide a plan for them to understand what was about to happen. They were going to kill Quintessa. That was an obvious fact.

They charged forward as one, weapons firing, swords shining, as Viviane grabbed the Staff and Cade tumbled to the floor, the room tilting too much for his tiny human body to remain upright.

As they did, Quintessa—floating with energy sparking around and through her—opened her hauntingly blue optics. Cold. Beautiful. Horrifying. " _Enough!_ "

A shockwave of raw, untamable energy and unknowable power swept the room, bolts of lightning arcing through the air. Anything not attached to the floor was thrown backward, humans and Autobots included.

Optimus slammed back into the floor, his sword and shield ripped from his grasp. He got up, only to be immediately secured with bolts of lightning. He suppressed the urge to cry out as the lightning began to burn him. He saw that the others, including Cade and Viviane, had not fared better. They were all lined up, suspended by the bolts.

They were trapped.

"I tolerate this insolence no longer." Quintessa's voice did not possess volume, yet projected unlike anything Optimus had heard in his long life. She floated down from her conduits, lightning continuing to arc around her. "You stand before your _god_. You shall be _awed_."

The room righted, gravity normalizing quickly yet gently. Optimus could see that they were no longer falling. No longer being hit with radiation from the human's nuclear weapon strike.

Quintessa had not even moved a finger.

"What arrogance you possess, daring to stand against _me_." Quintessa floated down further, so that she was less than thirty feet from them all. "Do you not grasp my power? Do you not _understand_? All you have done, all your fighting, all your progress, I have _allowed_. Not _once_ have you surprised me. Worried me. Hurt me. You are _my_ creations. You do not frighten me."

Lightning concentrated in five locations around the room. In each, an Infernocus appeared. Standing armed. Ready. Loyal.

"And just as easily as I allowed my Vessel to give you life, I can take it back."

The five colossus' suddenly crumpled to the ground, their very bodies crushed by an unseen force of tremendous power. Their dead forms disappeared in five flashes of lightning.

Optimus went flying back from some unspoken or gestured command by Quintessa. Before he knew it, they—the Mad Goddess included—were floating right at the edge of the room, looking down at the Earth twenty thousand feet below.

"Now be still," Quintessa said with the authority all things. Her words chilled Optimus' spark. "Know that I show you _kindness_ in allowing you to witness this glorious moment where Cybertron lives again, and Unicron is forever destroyed." The lightning around her intensified, arcing further and faster than ever before.

This was the end.

"I am sorry, Cade, Viviane," Optimus said, quietly. "I failed you."

"We all did, Prime." There was no blame in Cade's eyes. Optimus took no comfort in that.

Below, the beam connected to the _Knight's_ _Eternal_ grew brighter and brighter. Great bolts of lightning lashed out at the air around it, some striking Dragonstorm, whom Optimus saw flying below, attempting to reach the _Eternal_.

Then all became light. The beam below vanished, a wave of blue light spreading out on the planet below, extending beyond his sight. The lightning around Quintessa faded, and the Prime of Life closed her optics and smiled.

Optimus knew then it was done. The Earth's core had been drained, its energy transferred to Cybertron by Quintessa's immortal power. He slumped his head forward, waiting for the terrible moment where the price of his failure was realized. Where Cade and Viviane began to scream in agony, their bodies bombarded with solar radiation and unbearable heat. They would be the first of billions to die the same death.

He waited. And waited. And waited. Only the screams never came. The air did not grow hotter. Solar radiation did not hit them with full force. The pleasant breeze did not even cease.

He saw Quintessa slowly open her eyes. Then he saw something he did not expect.

The Mad Goddess _frowning_.

* * *

Director James Marcus waited for the end of the world.

His plan to stop the energy transfer failed. _Physics_ failed. _Science_ failed. Impossibly, despite being separated from the beam from the alien ship, the Incubator continued sucking the heat from the Earth's core.

There _was_ Magic. And it was about to wipe out all life on Earth.

"Sir…" The man who spoke was Trent. Good scientist. Lousy poker player.

James ignored him.

"Sir."

Was there a statistical possibility the afterlife existed? James hoped so.

" _Sir!_ "

"What?" Slowly, James looked up to Trent. Perhaps there was some final curiosity to see before the end.

"Look at this."

James stood up and went to the screens everyone stood around. His observant eyes took in the displays for half a second, widened.

The transfer was complete. The Earth's core was cold, relatively speaking. Sensors detected the magnetosphere was gone.

Only solar radiation was still being blocked. An unknown type of energy was appearing all over the world.

And Cybertron was _shifting_.

* * *

The sun was frequently blocked as Cybertron began to move, countless billions of parts all in sync. Like a Cybertronian of unfathomable size. Rapidly, it grew. Not in size, but area. Stretching out, moving away.

It was not devouring Earth, but _encompassing_ it.

 _Merging_ with it.

"No." Quintessa sounded almost… mortal in how she said that one word. Almost. "No. No. _No!_ This is _not_ what I command! This is not what the _Texts_ foretell!" She moved her hands as if to direct Cybertron's movement, but nothing changed.

It kept transforming, altering itself to link with Earth. In the far distance, Optimus saw a great pillar land upon one of the Horns of Unicron, bonding with it with the shifting of trillions of individual parts.

"Stop!" Quintessa screamed, moving her hands, only for nothing to happen. "I _command_ you! Obey _me!_ "

The Core of Cybertron split, parts of it becoming framework for the planet's new form, and some of it moving in the direction of the pillar linked to the Horn of Unicron.

"Cease! Cease! Destroy Unicron! De...str...oy…" Quintessa blinked, her haunting eyes gaining a new, unidentified quality. She looked around, as if seeing things for the first time. She frowned for the second time.

Then she fell to the floor and went still.

The lightning around Optimus faded. He dropped to the ground along with his Autobots and the humans. He stood over the still body of Quintessa, questions ringing in his head. What was happening? What had happened to her?

Crosshairs chuckled and reloaded his SMGs. "Tough bit of luck, Crazy Lady. Makes our job easier." He placed the barrels of his weapons against her head.

Without thought or consideration, Optimus pulled Crosshair's arms back, causing him to miss.

"What are you pulling, Prime?!" Crosshairs threw him a glare, growling. "I have this!"

"Don't."

His Autobots gave him a _very_ concerned look.

If he could do so, he would have given himself the same look. And yet, at the same time, he wouldn't. He was doing _exactly_ as the Matrix was telling him. The Matrix had not failed him since it was found in Egypt. He had ignored it at times, and when he had, people had died. People he cared about. Friends. Soldiers. Civilians. Sam. He could not ignore what it was telling him now.

 _Keep her alive_.

"Bind her, but do not kill her," he said. "Not yet."

"All due respect, Prime," Cade said. "But I don't think we should keep her around. Little nuts. Really powerful. Bad combo. You know what she can do."

He did. More than Cade understood. He looked outside. Cybertron was still transforming, but he could see what its form would be. A sphere. A great sphere that surrounded Earth without blocking out Sol. Such an event was remarkable. Straight from the Legends themselves. The act of a god creating art by breaking the laws of reality itself.

But the self-proclaimed Goddess at his feet had not been the one breaking those laws.

So what was?

* * *

Inside a blindingly bright white room, a figure leaned over a table.

The Figure was tall. Broad, with armor the same color as the room around it. The lone part of it that was not white was a single gold rune at the side of its armored head.

In the table the Figure looked down on, there was a silent, moving image. In that image, the Figure saw Cybertron transforming. Saw the Knights and the Prime gazing about in wonder. Saw the Mad Goddess lying unconscious. She would hate the Figure for what they did, but, perhaps in time, she would forgive it.

Afterall, it _was_ going to provide her a reunion.

Across the room, a book appeared in a flash of Magic. The Figure looked up, noted the book's return from Trinity Library at last, and returned to the table. It observed for a moment longer, then changed the image. There were other duties it needed to attend.

It paid no mind at how, due to the book's nature, it opened itself to the page Edmund Burton had found most interesting. Only now, it displayed the correct wording.

" _... upon their meeting, Unicron and Cybertron shall become One, as they were long ago. For with War's Warmth, Life will Live once again; and with their combined strength, they will combat the coming Storm. As to whether they succeed in defeating it, that is another Tale entirely…"_

* * *

 **There you have it. A little story I wrote up. Let me know what you think, and feel free to let me know if I get part of the finale wrong. As I said above, I didn't take notes when I saw the movie. If this proves popular, I am not opposed to making this a full story.**

 **One of the biggest inspirations for this story is this song: "Extreme Music - The Devil Always Gets Her Way." Obviously, it inspired the title, but the tone also drove me to write this. I recommend a listen.**

 **Thank you all for reading. If you enjoyed reading, please share or recommend this to a friend or friends. And if you _really_ enjoyed reading, please leave a comment. They are the lifeblood of all writers, and they do not take long to leave.**

 **See you soon.**


	2. Change

**Why hello. I decided to continue this story, on account there were several of you that quite liked it. I do hope it is worth the wait.**

 **Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro.**

* * *

Lennox thought, in the twelve years since that fateful night in Qatar that changed his life forever, that he'd seen it all. Vehicles that turned into sentient, humanoid robots. Three plans, each thousands of years in the making, designed to end all life on Earth. A _planet_ almost teleported next to his own.

Cybertron transforming itself was a new one.

It was near seven hours post-impact. 20:50, local time. Cybertron had totally encompassed the Earth in that time. Pillars of biblical size extended out from Unicron's Horns, visible for hundreds of miles in any direction. Cybertron's superstructure prevented the sun from hitting parts of Earth's surface, but the superstructure's intricate design ensured this only robbed those locations an average of seventy-seven minutes of sunlight per twenty-four hours.

Of course, that was according to the same scientists who said knocking the Incubator off its platform was the right call. Lennox was waiting on actual information first.

Still, he thought, the view's unrivaled.

The superstructure caught rays of sunlight the ground did not, lighting it up in a dazzling display of red, orange, and yellow. Wisp-like clouds formed around the pillars beneath them, so massive and alien they changed not just the horizon but the weather itself. The tops of those clouds, near sixty thousand feet in the air, caught the same sunlight as the superstructure above, further lighting up what would normally be a darkening sky. It was beautiful.

Without the context that it nearly killed everything on Earth, of course.

Lennox turned and went back into the tent behind him. Scientists and their equipment took up roughly 90% of available space inside. The rest was taken up by the scientists themselves, and the two soldiers Lennox had guarding them. The gesture likely unnecessary, but it couldn't hurt to keep highly-trained soldiers on stand-by.

The scientist in charge, Jeremy something, didn't look away from his screens when Lennox approached him. "What do you have?"

"Dreadfully little," Jeremy said, a wiry man three inches taller than Lennox but probably a good twenty pounds lighter. "And that's what makes no damned sense about it."

"What do you mean?"

"You're seeing sky out there, right? According to this, that sky shouldn't _be_ there. Sensors say the magnetosphere's _gone_ , yet we're still here. Talking. Living. You and I should be radioactive _goo_ right now, fried to a crisp by our own sun. I can't make sense of it."

Welcome to the club, Lennox thought. "What about our core?"

"Strange thing is, it's hot again, hotter than before. Way hotter. Hot enough that it's like we're back before the age of life on land."

"That can't be good."

"It won't be, yet volcanic activity's normal for now. No earthquakes. No boiling lakes. No change in atmosphere above or below the surface. It won't last, though. My bet's on the ocean warming up without us causing it. Storms doubling or tripling in intensity over the next year or so. Won't be fun. But considering that's the biggest change we'll have to deal with by taking on 1.2 EM, I'd say we're doing well."

"EM?"

"Earth mass. That planet that just _enveloped_ us? It's heavier than Earth, despite originally being only fifteen percent larger than Luna. Having that much mass so close together should have torn us all apart. Instead, we've merged into a super-earth with no change in gravity and only minor damage to either of us."

Lennox gritted his teeth at that. He'd hardly call fifty-six cities and nearly a quarter _billion_ dead as _minor_. To say that with a straight face… Lennox didn't get it. "Anything else before I report to HQ?"

"That other energy reading that appeared, right as our core went cold? Analysis says it's similar to the energy signature of the aliens," Jeremy said.

"That so?"

"Yes. It's different, though. 90% match; remaining 10%'s an unknown. It's stronger than their stuff, too. Like _orders of magnitude_ stronger. And it keeps getting even more powerful. Another wave appears once an hour, every hour, since Cybertron parked on us. Our sensors pick it up there, too."

That was something new. Lennox had no idea what it meant, but it was new. "Can you tell what it is?" The question was more of a threat analysis than anything else. If this energy was everywhere, what damage could it do? Would it make people sick? Kill them? Change them on some molecular level?

And why was it on a timer?

Jeremy suddenly raised up a hand, intently focused on the screens in front of him. Other scientists did the same, dropping whatever they were doing to look at the nearest display. Lennox was lost on the importance of the various lines moving up and down.

"It's coming again," Jeremy said at last, his voice quiet and distracted. Like Lennox was barely a thought on his mind.

"The reading?" Lennox asked.

"Yeah. Right on time, too." The scientist looked to another. "Mary, how much radiation this time?"

"423 Gray and climbing fast," said the older, red-headed woman, monitoring a device Lennox had no idea how to work.

But Lennox _did_ know enough about radiation that 400 Gray was more than ten times a lethal dose. All that was really needed to kill someone was 30 Gray, but the more you got hit with, the faster it killed you. Even then, 30 would kill within an hour. " _423_ Gray? How are we not dead yet?"

"The same way we're alive after the 100 Gray from the initial burst, and 200 from the second, and so on." The scientist, Mary, gave him a serious look. "We've been hit with more than 2,000 Gray since the first burst, Colonel."

"What's 'we' mean in this context?"

"Everyone. Every child at home. Every farmer in the field. Every head of state in a bunker. _Everyone on Earth_ has been hit with this radiation."

"And we're alive."

"And we're alive."

Even after everything that happened in the last 24 hours, even after fighting a _goddess_ , Lennox was shocked. Nothing obeyed the laws of the universe anymore.

He turned from the scientists and made his way out of the tent. Above and one kilometer away, the ancient Cybertronian ship crackled with blue energy, sending one beam up into Cybertron and another into Stonehenge beneath it. The crackling grew louder and louder, the energy brighter and brighter. They both reached a crescendo.

Then they spread out.

The energy ran across the ground in the blink of an eye, passing Lennox before he realized it had moved. Its touch left a lingering tingle and a faint smell of ozone. Like standing outside after a huge thunderstorm. At the same time, the crackling turned into a deep hum that reached all the way to the tent, and certainly beyond.

Then, just as quickly as it started, it ended. The ship above returned to its silent hovering. Stonehenge went back to being a simple monument.

And they were alive, after being bombarded by however many Gray units. None of this made sense.

The radio on his vest beeped. A day ago, it would have been a sat phone, but not now. Not with more than 80% of all satellite orbits disrupted by Cybertron's presence. Lennox sighed, then took out the radio to answer the barrage of questions he knew he was about to be hit with.

Earth may have been saved, but _hell_ if things weren't more complicated.

* * *

Cybertron was different than he remembered it.

No longer were there towering spires reaching for the stars. No longer were wondrous transportation systems taking tens of millions to and from historical sites and lucrative jobs.

No longer was the planet even whole.

Still, Optimus thought, the view is beautiful.

They flew over on a section of Cybertron's superstructure. Above them, more of the superstructure arched elegantly across the sky, lit up from Earth's sun. And below, thousands of kilometers away, loomed Earth in its brilliant glory, shining from the sun on one side and the light of many cities from the other.

He could not help but notice dark spots where there should have been cities.

"Approaching target location," Hound said, piloting the _Knight's Temple_ with superior skill. The others poked fun at Hound's body shape, but Optimus knew there were few alive who could be as precise as Hound. He had been an engineer once, before the War. Perhaps he could one day return to the profession.

"Are there signs of life?" Optimus asked.

Hound grunted. "Just our friend outside."

Friends, Optimus mentally corrected, looking out one of the viewports of the _Knight's Temple_ bridge. The combined form of the First Knights of Iacon, Dragonstorm, flew alongside the _Temple_ , its mighty three-headed profile both inspiring and frightening. He had heard the legends of the first generation of the Knights, left behind by the very people who now flew with them. Of the wars they fought and won. The lives they saved. The worlds they saw.

But none of those legends spoke of Quintessa. Nor had they spoke of why the First Knights left. They were supposed to be brothers, bonded together by their commitment to protect the weak and guide the lost. Why had they not warned the generation after them?

Why had they left in the first place?

"Destination's on the left," Crosshairs said from his position at one of the bridge workstations.

Optimus looked out one of the viewports on that side of the bridge. On the superstructure below, a building rose from the surface. It was more than three kilometers tall, yet was less than half as tall as it should have been. Its design was more artistic than practical, with walls and spires in the shape of waves, and long, winding walkways that flowed their way toward one of the building's many entrances like rivers into a lake. This resulted in the building's appearance to resemble one of Earth's—or, in ages long gone before even his time, Cybertron's—flowers.

Long had it been since he had laid optics on the Hall of Records. How poorly time had treated it.

"Hound—find a landing zone. Or, if possible, a location we can drop," Optimus said.

"Working on it," said Hound, using one hand to fly the _Temple_ while he used the other to operate a sensor. "But we got a big ass ship, and there ain't a lot of open space down there."

"Do what you can." Optimus left the bridge and made for one of the hundreds of cells inside the _Temple_. The damage Lockdown had done to the ship was irreparable, but at least one change he made was useful, in their present situation.

He reached the only cell currently in use aboard the ship. It was larger than the others and fitted with cold plasma bindings—and while not as secure or heavily armored as the _Temenos_ , it had more security measures than the other cells. And they needed everything they could get with Quintessa involved.

The Mad Goddess hung from the cold plasma bindings, wrapped around the torso and lower body, with her arms secured at her sides. She was motionless in her bindings, having not awoken since she collapsed. Optimus was thankful for that. The bindings would likely not hold long if she was awake.

He looked to Hot Rod and Bumblebee, stationed at either side of the cell, watching intently for movement. "Status," he said.

"Nothing," Hot Rod said, his voice unaccented. Since his assignment to aid the Allies in the humans' World War II, his voice box had been set to speak English with a French accent. No one was sure why, but Optimus suspected Jazz had been involved. But ever since Cybertron and Earth had merged, the mysterious setting had been reversed. And again, no one was sure why. "Quintessa has been nearly lifeless since she fell. If we weren't looking, I'd have thought she was already dead."

"She just... hangs there, not moving," Bumblebee agreed, his own voice fully returned. "It's creepy."

"She's a lot more than that, 'Bee."

"Security systems?" Optimus asked.

"Turrets are active and honed in on her," Bumblebee said, pointing to the three automated Combustion Cannons around the room, positioned for a wide angle of fire without accidentally damaging the other turrets. "She wakes up and tries to escape, those will open up."

For what little they will do, Optimus knew the young scout thought. "We will be landing soon," Prime said. "Drift will be joining you when we do."

"Yes, Prime," Hot Rod and Bumblebee both said, nearly synchronized. Any complaint they might have had at having the former Decepticon join them in guard duty was nowhere to be found in their obedient tones.

What had he done to gain such loyalty, even after he betrayed them?

"Notify me of any change," he said, and left the brig. He heard them acknowledge the order, again, without complaint. He needed to repay their loyalty. Their faith in him. Somehow.

The _Temple_ had just begun to land when he reached the bridge again. Hound had chosen to land the ship at the edge of the walkways, upon ground that had been torn apart by bombings long ago. Optimus had been there when it had.

"Not ideal, Optimus," Hound said, carefully guiding the _Temple_ down to the ground. It landed with a great rumble that, in reality, had been a soft landing. "But any closer to the Hall of Records and we'll start breaking the walkways."

"Was an air drop also not an option?"

"Scanners say most of the roof's about to crumble. Not sure about you, Prime, but I ain't the lightest mech around."

"Then we will make do, Hound. Crosshairs—remain here. If we need to leave with haste, your piloting skills will be needed."

"And still you give the fat guy the stick," Crosshairs scoffed, folding his arms.

"Hey, now," Hound said. "I'm chubby. Not fat. Note the difference."

"Enough," Optimus said. And that was that. "Drift—reinforce Hot Rod and Bumblebee."

"As you command, Prime." Drift stood from the weapons station he had been operating, offered a slight bow, then turned and left the room.

"Hound—with me."

"Got it, Boss."

They left the bridge, then navigated their way through the _Temple_ 's corridors and down to the shattered surface of Cybertron. It appeared even more desolate and barren while up close. It pained him, seeing his planet like this. And even then, he saw only the portion that survived; the rest had been torn asunder by Sentinel and Megatron's failed plot to enslave Earth.

What would their worlds look like, had the Decepticons and Autobots never gone to war?

Optimus felt something crack under his foot. He looked down, and saw that he had stepped on a stal'nit—a hexagonal toy that had been popular with hatchlings and sparklings. It was burned on one side.

He looked away from the toy and up into the sky, where Dragonstorm flew overhead and continued on. They would be going to their own destination: the Infinite Spire. The ancient home of the Knights. "Atmosphere?" Optimus asked Hound.

Hound grunted, mixing with the sound of digits tapping against a touch screen. "Scanner reads a perfect match for Earth."

Just as before, on a lower portion of the superstructure. "Are you certain?"

Hound ran the scan again. Another grunt. "Same result."

"Radiation levels?"

Before Hound could respond, a wave of arcing blue energy ran across the ground. Optimus felt a jolt at its passing. Smelled ozone. That made seven bursts since Cybertron's arrival. All _exactly_ one hour apart. Not a coincidence.

"Hound?" He asked, watching the blue energy pass across the superstructure above and below them. It would have already done the same on Earth.

"212.1 Units, as we measure 'em, Prime," Hound said. "Before that, radiation levels were the same as sea level on Earth."

"Negative effects of the burst?"

Optimus heard the scanner activate behind him again, then Hound said, "Nothing that sticks out. Stuff's harmless."

So it would seem. Yet, it kept getting stronger. Kept coming back. And while it was harmless to them—Cybertronians—was it harmless to the humans? Were they being hurt? Killed? Was Earth's population doomed to diminish even further, while he watched?

They needed answers.

"Come," he said, and began the long trek ahead. "We must begin our search."

* * *

Getting to the Hall of Records proved to be a difficult task.

Despite technically being safe for travel, the walkways were too damaged for using alt modes. They were restricted to walking, or, if it was required, jumping across a fragile section. Optimus could have flown, but after serving Quintessa, he felt it would be wrong of him to abandon Hound to walk while he went ahead.

The wave of light had come again by the time they at last reached the Hall of Records and found an entryway. It had been greatly damaged in the War, with its many murals and artistic carvings lost to bullets, blade, and explosives. It was one of the few entrances that had remained passable after the War.

The inside of the Hall of Records was of little improvement. Many of the building's high ceilings and walls were greatly damaged or barely holding together. Rows and rows of desks and shelves and chairs laid in ruins. Statues and displays that once showcased or held ancient knowledge had been looted or stripped for parts long ago. Countless stains leftover from the dead littered the battle-scared floor.

Even so, it was nostalgic for Optimus. He stood within the place where some of the fondest memories of his life had come to pass. Stepping foot inside for the first time as a hatchling, and discovering the wonder of knowledge. Meeting the many wonderful mechs and femmes who worked in and cared for the Hall. Long nights of reading data pads, and longer nights of conversation with the Head Archivist.

Meeting Jazz for the first time within its walls. In the same gathering, meeting Ironhide. Ratchet. Prowl. Hound. Wheeljack. Mirage. Megatron. And… And…

Optimus stopped that last thought.

"Place has seen better days," Hound remarked. Optimus detected a faint hint of grief in his voice. Grief for the time when the Hall of Records was whole—when the friends they'd lost were still among them.

Optimus looked up as they passed a statue, the only one in the immense room that remained standing. It was of an unnamed Knight, standing with his sword embedded into the ground. Time had claimed one arm and part of the sword, but its regal face was as brave and clear as it had been when he first stepped foot in the Hall.

"And it will see them again," he said, turning away from the statue and moving to a nearby desk. "Start searching."

"Whadda we lookin' for?" Hound asked, walking to a row of ruined data pads.

"A copy of the _Covenant_."

Optimus felt Hound's optics turn to him.

"I sense what you are thinking."

"Yeah? Rhymes with _nuts_. The remnants of our planet _merged_ with Earth, Prime. There are a lot of bad things we need to figure out; and instead of doing that, you want to find a _religious_ text?"

"The first copy of the _Covenant_ dates from before the War. Before your time. Before mine. Before Sentinel. In a tome as old as it, there are bound to be some truths within it. Truths that we did not understand before this day." Optimus found a copy of the _Covenant_ within the desk he searched, but it was labeled as a modern translation. Useless for what he needed. He laid it back where he found it, then moved to the next desk. "But we will need an original translation."

"The older it is, more likely it dates from before any of us were around. On it, Prime."

They spent the next half hour in silence, searching decrepit desks, destroyed shelves, and debris-filled rooms. They found little. Optimus found a poorly-preserved data chip cataloging the opening of a long-destroyed super skyscraper; Hound found a hard copy of a long-forgotten vid. Their remaining discoveries were far less noteworthy. Until they entered the office of a supervisor.

It was a simple square room. Not richly decorated, but certainly above the common Cataloger. There was a desk in the middle of the room, designed in the same, flowing way as the Hall itself.

Resting on top of it was the oldest copy of the _Covenant_ Optimus had ever seen.

Optimus rounded the desk and examined the book. Its cover was worn, and its metallic pages greyed, but it was intact—and, judging by the archaic language of the first page he turned to, it was beyond ancient.

"That what you're lookin' for?" Hound asked, dropping a data pad he'd taken from a shelf.

"So it appears." Optimus flipped to another page, what appeared to be a list of casualties from a battle he had not read about before. "However, finding the _Covenant_ represents only half our objective."

"And the other half?"

"Reading it."

* * *

" _Staus update, Colonel."_ Morshower's voice sounded strange through the radio. Lennox's voice probably sounded just as strange on the other end.

"Don't have much for you, sir," he said, stepping outside so he could hear Morshower more clearly. The tent didn't block radio waves, but some of the equipment of the scientists made noise. "None of these eggheads have any ideas."

" _And the radiation?"_

"From the burst or the nuke?"

" _Either or, Colonel."_

"The bursts keep increasing in intensity, and we keep taking it without a problem. Sensors read fallout from our tactical strike as being more harmful."

Morshowser hummed, the sound coming more as a grunt. _"What I wouldn't give for an Autobot mind working on this."_

Lennox wanted the same. Maybe they'd have a team of them on it right now, had the CIA not screwed it all up years ago. "Still no luck making contact?"

" _NASA's still got a working telescope they're using to track the Autobot ship."_

Lennox looked up into the dark English sky, toward the outline of Cybertron. Toward the Autobots. It was a clear night, and the moon was full. The superstructure looked both menacing and captivating in the light. "But we haven't tried establishing communications?"

" _We're still trying to find a comm satellite that'll work down here. President's putting off reestablishing talks with the Autobots until we can. He thinks it'll be a long process just to get an answer out of them."_

Lennox feared the same. The Autobots would be right to be cautious, too. After all, after five years of running from, and being hunted by, the CIA, they decided to save Earth regardless. And what was humanity's answer? A multinational task force dedicated to continuing the CIA's work. A perverted form of the very group Morshower and Lennox headed with Prime, so long ago.

If he were one of the Autobots, he wouldn't want to talk, either. Not to them, at least. Certainly to Cade Yager and Viviane Wembly, since it was Cade that told Lennox the Autobots had left in the first place. But if either he or Viviane had a way to talk to the Autobots, they weren't sharing, and Lennox wasn't going to force them to.

"Anything else, sir?" Lennox asked.

" _Negative. Keep us informed, Lennox. Top out."_

Lennox returned the radio to his vest and returned to the inside of the tent. He noticed immediately that there was a light in Jeremy's eyes that hadn't been there when Lennox stepped out. "Got something?"

"Something's a word for it. Not sure what it means. Come take a look. See for yourself."

Lennox moved next to Jeremy and looked at the screen. It displayed a number of data feeds from the instruments around them. Just as before, he had no idea what he was looking at. "Looks like data."

Jeremy huffed and began working on his keyboard. "Damn Yanks. Always wanting simple answers."

"Today, of all days, is not the time for jokes like that," Lennox said, his voice dull and tired.

Jeremy caught onto that quickly. "Oh… Right. I'm really sorry, mate. Truly. It's easy for me to get caught up in this work. Forget the chaos. Or how bad things are outside England. I'm so, so—"

"It's okay," Lennox said, and that was that.

Jeremy finished what he was was working on and pressed enter. A map appeared next to the data feeds. "So, what do we know about the bursts?"

"They're powerful, appear every hour, and are similar to the readings of Cybertronians," Lennox said.

"Right. But have you noticed anything else about them?"

"Been a little too busy to notice much."

"Okay, that's fair. To be honest, I have, too. But right after the last burst, I saw something." He picked up a pen from the desk in front of him. "This fell from my station, nevermind how. When I went to pick it up after the burst died down, it _arced_ with the same energy the bursts send out."

Lennox frowned.

"My exact reaction. Then I realized something. If there was a residual charge in a pen, what about the equipment around us? Sure enough, everything metal is holding a charge. And it manifests as an electrical spark."

"That dangerous?"

"No. Painful, believe me, but not dangerous. Nothing we have around here has enough metal to hold more than a small battery's worth of energy. But if _any_ metal holds a charge, and these bursts travel _everywhere_ …"

Lennox caught onto what he was saying. "Can you get readings from Cybertron?"

"Way ahead of you." Jeremy brought up a crude map of Cybertron and overlapped it with Earth. He then highlighted Cybertron blue. "I've been studying our sensor data. It suggests Cybertron's entire surface is holding in an _alarming_ energy from each burst, but that's not all." He highlighted portions of Earth. "So are areas of Earth. Mines. Dense mineral deposits. Buildings. They're retaining the energy, and I have _no_ _idea why_."

"It's coming again!"

Jeremy shifted his attention to the incoming burst, but Lennox was frozen by what the scientist had found. Metal was retaining a charge. How? Why?

And why did pondering the answer to that question bring him dread?

He felt the tingle of a burst wave passing by. He didn't pay it any mind. He took out his radio to report this new development to Morshower, only to stop.

The radio didn't click on.

The lights in the tent went out. The instruments went dead. The air suddenly became electric again. More so than any wave had. More than any of them _combined_.

Lennox's dread spread to more than just theoretical questions.

* * *

The bursts had come twice more as they returned to the _Temple_ , and once more since he began reading.

He had found discovered nothing of significance in that time.

He sat in a chair in a small room he's chosen as his office. It was of simple design, and offered a view of the space outside the _Knight's Temple_. It currently gave him an unobstructed view Cybertron, with the dark side of Earth beyond, looming like the titan it was. The view was not a help in his search.

Optimus sighed to himself and turned to another page, taking his time to read every word carefully. He was acutely aware that the same word could carry many meanings, depending on context. And context changed constantly within the narrative of the _Covenant_. Accounts of wars, empires, rulers, gods, Primes. Stories—fictional, figurative, factual—were written in gross and intricate detail, and commonly never in order. And that was the _modern_ translation; the ancient copy he held was ten-fold as densely-packed with information.

The Prime believed he now understood why much of it had been cut out in later editions.

He found his current page contained no clues to recent events, and turned to the next. It was a log naming those involved in the signing of a treaty millennia before Optimus' birth. The next page was equally unremarkable. And the next. And the next.

The next was not.

It was a passage. A story of thirteen waves lapping against the shore of an alien sea.

" _The First Wave was a surprise,"_ the passage read. _"It came at a time of great importance, and great change. None were sure what to make of the Wave, for it came in a time where Waves did not form or lap or were even thought of._

" _The Second Wave created even more confusion, for just one Wave was puzzling—what were people to make of two?_

" _The Third and Fourth and Fifth Waves interested them, but less than the first two, for the other struggles and questions of the Day drew their attention._

" _The Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Waves were given even less attention, for if other Waves had come, why were the new ones worthy of being scrutinized?_

" _The Tenth and Eleventh Waves were ignored, but a select few took great note of the Twelfth, for a Discovery had been made. An important piece of Knowledge reclaimed. They realized their foolishness in ignoring them._

" _Now, the Thirteenth Wave was different than those before it. While the Twelve obeyed rules set for them, the Thirteenth was greater, and wilder, and mischievous. When the Twelfth lapped against the shore, the Thirteenth came right after, its power causing panic and alarm even before it arrived. And with Thirteenth's passing, came the Change."_

Optimus felt the jolt of a passing wave of energy. He thought back, counting how many that made. The answer came to him within a millionth of a second.

 _Twelve_.

The lights of the _Temple_ suddenly went out, followed closely by the ship's artificial gravity, then the power to even the door to the room. The air around him was torn away as the atmospheric shielding surrounding the ship disappeared.

Optimus floated up into the still air, the words of the _Covenant_ running through the back of his mind.

 _The Thirteenth came right after, its power causing panic and alarm even before it arrived._

On Earth—far, dark orb of billions of souls—a speck of blue light appeared. It expanded rapidly, growing to the size of the continent from which it originated, then larger still. It raced up the Pillars, arcing and lashing out like the lightning of a thousand, thousand storms. Those great bolts went from Pillar to Pillar, growing stronger and larger still.

The light passed over the _Temple_.

Optimus felt the shock of every previous wave pass through him all at once. No, he felt it them three-fold. Five-fold. Ten-fold, and more. It was agony, and it was calm. Peace. Soothing. It was something _different_.

Then it was over.

Optimus shook his head, looking out again in time to see the last of the wave pass over Cybertron's surface and continue into space, where it eventually dissipated. He felt… He was not sure what he felt. Stronger? More determined? More… _Him_?

The lights came back on. The atmospheric shielding returned. Gravity was restored. He landed easily on the floor, still trying to determine how he felt.

Crosshairs opened a comm with him. _"Prime… Something's happening."_

" _I believe it has already."_

" _The_ Temple's _sensors are lighting up,"_ Crosshairs went on, as if Optimus had saod nothing. _"I'm detecting signatures in the hundreds. Thousands._ Tens _of thousands. On Earth and Cynertron."_

The Matrix stired within his chest, directing him to the window. He did as it said. _"Signatures of what, Crosshairs?"_ He reached the window and looked outside, to Cybertron's surface.

He was so stunned he nearly missed Crosshair's answer: _"... Us, Prime."_

There, just beginning to stand up, _Cybertronians_. Autobot and Decepticon and Neutral. Mech and femme and sparkling. They all appeared confused. Disoriented. But _alive_. Intact. Peaceful, even upon looking at those who had been mortal enemies. Autobot and Deception. Decepticon and Autobot. Neutral to both. And there were thousands of them.

In the back of his head, another piece of the passage sprang forth.

 _And with Thirteenth's passing, came the Change._

* * *

 **Chapter 2 is done.**

 **I had a lot of fun with this. I love fantasy, and I love science-fiction. Combining the two is a dream come true for me. I know I kind of focused solely on Lennox and Prime here, but I found their stories more important to tell than the others I tried to write into this in another draft. The way Lennox and Prime parallel at times was also an intentional device on my part.**

 **The song that most inspired me for the ending of this chapter was this one "The Secession - The Untold" It has a steady, intensely mysterious tone to it, and I find it fits perfectly with the ending scene. My own opinion, of course. Still, I recommend a listen.**

 **Thank you all for reading. If you enjoyed reading, please share or recommend this to a friend or friends. And if you _really_ enjoyed reading, please leave a comment. They are the lifeblood of all writers, and they do not take long to leave.**

 **See you soon.**


	3. Rebirth

**So... Hi.**

 **I haven't updated this thing in a year. A _year_. Holy crap. That wasn't a break I wanted to take. I give you my apologies for taking so long. If anyone is still willing to read this, I would gladly keep writing it. Hopefully without a year gap between updates.**

 **Thank you all for the reviews, including this without accounts.**

 **Disclaimer: Transformers belongs to Hasbro.**

* * *

The crowds were growing larger and larger.

Optimus made his way through them, making sure to touch and greet every _last one_. He had lost count of how many femmes, sparklings and mechs he'd encountered. How many faces were vaguely _familiar_ , yet he could not place them.

No one remembered _anything_.

He'd spoken to Neutrals, to Autobots, to Decepticons. None remembered the War. None remembered the horrors. The fighting. They did not even remember their names. They only asked questions. Where were they? How did they get here? What happened to them?

And the most chilling: where was Life? Why could they not feel Her?

Optimus never answered those.

Could they be speaking of Quintessa? Was that _possible_? The Knights identified her as the Great Deceiver. Would that not also mean her claimed title as the Prime of Life was a lie? Or was there a horrible truth to her words?

He needed an answer.

He found the Knights among the crowds, doing much the same thing he was. Greeting those who could not remember who they were, what they had done, what they believed. Establishing friendship. Offering small comforts or reassurances. Answering what questions they could.

Their leader, Stormreign, stood tall among them, looking every bit the Knight of legend that he was. Around him, mechs and femmes were gathered, looking at him with confused, barely-seeing optics.

"Where is Life?" They asked, one by one. "Why can we not feel Her?"

Stormreign's helmeted gaze was unreadable, even to Optimus' experienced optics. "Be well, friends. Have patience as we seek energon for all of your thirsty mouths." He excused himself from the small crowd around him, and made his way to Optimus. "Brother Optimus. We must speak."

"That we must. Follow me." Optimus led Stormreign to a ruined building. Once, it had been a home. A large one, with more than four dozen rooms spread across five floors. Now, it was rubble. Its rooms were bare and torn apart by weapons fire and explosions. The upper two floors were gone, while the third floor was open to the Cybertron air. Or Earth air now; they were one and the same.

They went up the stairs to the third floor and into what had once been a large room. There was no ceiling, leaving intact the full, majestic view of Earth's dark sphere and Cybertron's complex superstructure. The front wall was gone, long destroyed in battle. Through the massive gap in its place, Optimus could see the crowds aimlessly wandering the battle-scarred streets, and of the _Knight's Temple_ floating above the city, stationary. Looming over the crowds like an ancient, grand protector.

Stormreign wasted no time in speaking, "My Knights and I are troubled, Brother Optimus."

"As am I," Optimus said. "And I fear for more reasons than you."

"Speak your mind."

Optimus wasn't sure he should. The frustrations he had felt earlier in the day, the confusion of being left in the dark about Quintessa's very existence, seemed trivial now. There were bigger problems before them. And not just on Cybertron. Earth, too, would require their attention. How much destruction had been wrought across its surface? How many were dead? How many would die still? How could they help a people who had just witnessed their place in the world forever change?

He felt tired.

"Those who have woken," Optimus eventually said. "Do they ask for her? Do they ask for Quintessa?"

Stormreign was silent for too long.

"They do."

"Yes," the ancient Knight admitted. He made a sweeping gesture toward the window, out into the packed streets below. "All those who breathe once more seek Life. Seek Quintessa."

"So it is true. She _is_ our creator."

"Yes."

Optimus felt his spark sink. Felt his hands turn to fists as he processed what he'd just heard. After all this time, after so many countless vorns, the truth came out. They were not of the AllSpark. Not really. They were of _Quintessa_. A mad goddess of nigh-infinite power and instability.

He was a child of insanity. They all were. There was never a benevolent Primus. No guardian of peace throughout the universe. Only madness and death and chaos.

And he'd been _that_ _close_ to giving her full power once more.

The Matrix pulsed in his chest, soothing him. He barely noticed. "What do you know of her?"

"Less than we wish, more than we want." Stormreign stepped to the edge of the room, gazing out to the _Knight's Temple_. Optimus knew he was old, but in that moment, he _looked_ old. His armor did not shine in the light. His posture was bowed and low. Like he carried a planet on his shoulders.

"I would tell you, but it is a tale long in length," he went on, moving back to Optimus, straightening once again. "And yet, we Firsts are _long_ past due in delivering truth. It would be easier to _show_ you." He offered an open servo. "Take my hand, Brother. Journey with me to Truth."

Optimus stared at the open hand before him. Part of him wanted to demand verbal answers. Part of him wanted to see what Stormreign wished to show him. Another part of him—the bitter, angry part that he found uncomfortably like Megatron—wanted to _scream_ at Stormreign. Be enraged at how, for millennia, he allowed the Knights after him to remain clueless about the deep truth of their race.

But he was not Megatron.

He took the other mech's hand.

And his world exploded in light and shadow.

* * *

"Bah, don't bother with that junk," Daytrader said, throwing a dismissive gesture at the mangled hunk of metal his associate had picked up. "Just iron. No one buys iron."

"You question everything I pick up," growled Cycler, the associate, as he dropped the hunk of metal to the hot, near-molten ground. He was a short blue and grey mech of a stocky build that fit with his blunt personality. "Makes me think you don't even _want_ me here."

"That depends on if you can find me good metal."

Cycler growled in annoyance and walked away, moving to join the others.

Been a weird twenty hours, Daytrader thought, watching the mech go. First, planets start falling from the sky, then those planets start merging with other planets, then this. A near-extinct race resurrected in the blink of an optic. The order of the world had changed. And most certainly for the better. Cybertron was back. His people were back. Whatever happened to the humans didn't matter to him. A new age of Cybertronians was about to begin.

And with it, there was opportunity.

With thousands upon thousands of Cybertronians now online, trading posts were going to spring up everywhere. Not today, of course, but Daytrader knew easy money when he saw it. So, he'd set about getting a crew together. It'd been a lot harder than he'd thought. The new people who'd sprung up, no matter what faction symbol they had, talked nonsense to him. Asked questions he'd had no idea what to do with. It was like they were in some kinda overcharged stupor, not sure where they were or what was happening. But luckily, he'd managed to find three people who still had their helms: Cycler, Metalhead, and Raze.

They were in the wake of one of Cybertron's Tendrils. It was hundreds of miles long and wide, and several miles deep. Where they were now had been a human city. He wasn't sure which one, but it had been full of life and wealth and people

Unfortunately for them, the Tendril didn't give one slag. There were no survivors.

He picked his way forward, wincing with each step. The ground here was not Earth's true surface; that had been stripped away. This was the rock that lay beneath, and it was painfully hot. Part of that came from its nature, while most of it came from the immense friction of a planet skidding across the surface of another. Daytrader was curious how it was that gravity had not yet ripped _both_ planets apart.

Eh, guess it wasn't something to think about much. He was going to make a _killing_. That was enough.

"Daytrader."

Daytrader looked up from his scavenging to Raze approaching him, bearing a load of recently-cooled metal slag. Raze was a femme, the only one in his crew. She was tall, slender, and had red and orange armor. When he recruited her two hours ago, she had been preparing for the inevitable resource needs by hoarding oil supplies.

"What do ya have for me?" He asked, eying what she carried. Even with a quick glance, he could tell most of the metal was junk, with only one or two pieces that were actually worth anything. This planet was filled with a lot of useless ores.

"Copper," she said, tossing the first cooled chunk of metal his way.

He caught it, examined it, and found it was indeed copper. He nodded, somewhat satisfied. It wasn't the best metal, but it would be useful for setting up the groundwork for more advanced systems. It would do. "Not bad. Next."

She gave him a series of metal scraps. Some aluminium. Some titanium. More copper. A little bit of gold and silver. Not a bad haul, though far from what he'd been hoping to find in this area. Since her load was the best they'd found so far, maybe it was time to move on.

"I also found this," she said, after handing over the last piece of metal she brought with her.

In her hand was a nearly two-meter-long rod of metal. Thin in nature and dark in appearance, it was most certainly _not_ metal slag. In fact, it bore no signs of being broken or even superheated. One end was rounded and spherical, surrounded by six, wicked-looking spikes pointing up from the object's main body. The other end was sharp and pointed. Dagger-like.

That wasn't natural.

"Give it here."

Raze offered the sliver of metal to him, and Daytrader flipped it around in his hands, scanning it with experienced optics and subtle sensors. He came up with nothing. The metal felt impossibly light, yet strong and unyielding in his grasp. Upon closer inspection, he could see tiny, thirteen-sided polygons embedded into the structure of the metal itself. Triskaidecagons, they were called. They were ordered into lines that ran up and down the surface of the object, stopping at the rounded section. They almost looked like runes.

This was _definitely_ _not natural_.

"Where did you find this?" He asked.

Raze pointed in the direction where Cycler and Metalhead were searching. "About half a mile that way. It was just sticking out of a patch of molten rock. It was cool to the touch, so I brought it here."

That sealed it: this piece was an alloy. A very _advanced_ alloy. Too advanced for the natives. And that meant it was valuable. "Let's get Cycler and Metalhead. Show us where you found it."

They gathered together and set out, following Raze to the alloy's origin point.

When they got there, Daytrader saw the pool of molten rock Raze mentioned. It was roughly thirty feet in diameter, and perfectly round.

That was also _not natural._

"It was just here?" Daytrader asked.

"Yes," Raze said. "Upright, right in the center."

Daytrader moved closer to the edge, frowning. In the center of an unnaturally round pond of superheated stone? That was most… Convenient. Suspicious, even.

Daytrader peered into the pool, watching the molten rock bubble. Why had the metal rod stopped _here_ , of all places? That Tendril had ripped up hundreds of millions years' worth of minerals and wildlife. Nothing in its wake had been left standing.

Except this little metal rod, and which had been stuck in this little pool of molten rock. Why? There wasn't anything special about this spot.

Unless…

"Metalhead," Daytrader said to the largest of them, a large mech who'd taken a dump truck as an alt mode. "Fish around in that with the skimmer. See what you come up with."

The huge mech gave him a look, then shrugged and took the skimmer off his backplates.

The skimmer was a tool they'd fashioned before leaving on their expedition. It consisted of a light pole from a human city, some high-strength alloys they'd liberated from a factory, and a lot of chain. The result was a tool that allowed them to search molten pools of rock without jumping in themselves. Handy thing.

Metalhead put the skimmer into the molten pool and started shifting through. After a minute, he stopped. "Something's weird," he said with a quiet voice for someone of his massive size.

"How so?" Cycler asked.

"Bottom's smooth. Not rough, jagged. Just smooth."

"Can you feel if there's an impression in the center?" Daytrader asked.

Metalhead gave him a look for that.

"Reach out. Tell me how it feels in the center."

Metalhead grunted and reached out. He soon looked confused. "There's a hole in there."

"Perfectly round."

"Yeah."

"And small."

"... Yeah."

Just as he thought, and hoped.

Daytrader looked once again to the metal rod he held, to the flat, narrow edge at its base, then into the pool. Then he smiled. "Femme and mechs, we got ourselves a ruin. Let's find a way to get into it."

* * *

The next thing Optimus knew, he was standing on the surface of an unfamiliar world. Or what had been a world. Its lands had been ravaged by war. Rivers ran dry. Organic plants had withered and died. Portions of the planet _floated_ in the distance, torn asunder by destructive forces that rivaled that of Cybertron's Tendrils. The sky above was void of a sun, stars and atmosphere. In their place were the drifting remains of countless ships. Vessels ranging from the size of fighters to dreadnoughts. All damaged beyond repair.

And the land before him was filled with the dead.

Organics, synthetics, Cybertronians, monstrosities that should not have existed. They were all mixed together, felled by blade, blaster and explosions. Tens of millions of them. Hundreds of millions.

So much death.

"Come, Brother."

Optimus looked, and saw Stormreign to his left, standing atop the hull of a crashed organic transport. The burned bodies of the crew littered the blackened ground around it. "Where are we?"

"Come and see."

Optimus approached the transport, avoiding the dead as he went, and climbed up and joined Stormreign on top of the destroyed craft.

The first thing he noticed was that the transport had crashed into the top of a mountain, and that the landscape ahead was many miles beneath his feet.

The second thing he noticed was the war being waged on that low landscape.

The carnage behind him paled in comparison to the battles below. He had no way to quantify the number of dead, the legions of active warriors—synthetic and organic—that fought each other. Ships tore each other asunder in the sky, firing cannons that dwarfed anything the Decepticons or Autobots had ever fielded. Combiners the size of _cities_ clashed against many-limbed, organic titans that were even larger. Plasma and particle beam weapons ripped through dozens of targets at once, each individual beam criss-crossing the battlefield in a chilling display of angry yellow, green, red and blue.

"Where are we?" Optimus repeated, the frown in his voice. Not once in his time in the Archives had he read of a battle of this scale. He needed to consult the Codex he and Hound recovered.

"My first memories," Stormreign said. "Let us examine them closer."

Something flashed in Optimus' optics, then they were on the battlefield. It was chaos wherever he looked. Bloody, gory chaos. There were no distinctive voices here. No order. Just battlecries, the clang of metal on metal, explosions and the sound of countless taking their last breaths.

Then, in the middle of the chaos, Optimus saw him. Stormreign. Only not the Stormreign he was used to seeing. This Stormreign was bright gold and took with him a wide shield into battle. He looked younger. More fierce. Thirsty for war and blood. He swung his sword, felling three, multi-armed organics nearly Optimus' size with one blow, and moved to his next opponents.

"I awoke shortly before this moment," said the real Stormreign from where he stood at Optimus' side. "The first time I beheld the world, there was an axe descending upon my helm. On instinct, I slew my attacker, and joined this."

"You were born into war." Optimus could not help but feel pity for the other mech. War was the greatest horror in all the universe. To be born in it, to experience it before anything else, was a tragedy.

"As were my brothers. The First Knights." Stormreign gestured left, and Optimus saw several other Knights fighting the organics. Like Stormreign, they appeared younger and more battle-eager than they did on Earth. "Our first memories are gazing up at the debris you see in the sky, while the war waged around us. We joined the fray shortly after."

"Why?"

"Why what, Brother?"

"Why join the fight?"

"She made us so."

That was when everything stopped.

One moment, everyone was fighting. The next, there was a flash that both hurt and soothed his optics, and all who stood were brought low, excluding he and the present Stormreign. Then, she appeared.

As bright as a quasar; warmer than a sunlit morning; powerful beyond any weapon; beauty personified beyond what mortal eyes could see, she appeared. Gone was her headdress and jagged shoulders. Gone was was her tendriled lower half. In front of him, there stood a towering, blindingly white femme clothed in stars and fire and light. Her eyes were suns—blinding, blazing, beautiful and awing. In one hand, she held a hammer of holy flame; in the other, she held a familiar Staff, hundreds of times larger than he had seen it before. Behind her trailed a cloak of stars. And on her chest, there glowed elegant armor of light.

Quintessa had come. _Life_ had come.

Optimus found it disturbing how instinctive that realization felt.

She looked across the battlefield, gazing down at the beings whose largest stood less than a third her height. All those she looked over fell lower to the ground, averting their optics. Like they were unworthy of gazing upon her.

Her eyes fell on Optimus. Even knowing she was a memory, even knowing she was not real, he felt his entire _being_ react to her. Felt the impulse to fall to his knees as the others had. Felt his optics burn when he met hers. The Matrix pulsed wildly in his chest, its comfort faint and distant in the presence of the Creator herself.

"This war was hers," Stormreign said, drawing Optimus' attention to him. "And she birthed her children to fight it."

"Why?" How many had asked that very question throughout the universe? Trillions? Quadrillions? Quintillions? More? Even seeing the origins of his people through the eyes of one who lived it, it was all Optimus could think to ask.

"Her hand was forced by the one she combated."

The ground beneath their pedes began to rumble. Subtly at first, then violently. It rose and fell as a great earthquake began to ravage it, collapsing stone and debris and throwing the dead about like toys. Optimus had trouble keeping his balance.

Then the ground collapsed.

Not near Optimus or Stormreign, or Quintessa, or any of the Cybertronians, but at the far end of the battlefield. Near the mass of organic and synthetic beings and monstrosities Optimus had not noticed retreating to the distance. The ground disappeared into a great void that spread rapidly, eating away at the surface—even part of a _mountain_.

Out of that void came a titan. Enormous, spiked and darker than the starless sky, the titan had two long, jagged arms with six fingers at the end of each hand that could have picked up _cities_ with ease. It was cloaked in darkness, as Quintessa was cloaked in fire and stars. Its eyes were deep red fire—burning with black rage and unquenchable bloodlust. Its jagged black armor exuded darkness that devoured the light around it. In one of its hands, it held a glowing battleaxe made of the same fire as its eyes; in the other, it also held a Staff, only sharper and more menacing in appearance. And on its head, it wore a crown of six horns, each one taller than ten skyscrapers.

The sight of the titan nearly stole his hope.

"Behold Unicron," Stromreign said. "Eater of Worlds. Bringer of War. Quintessa's foe."

"The Great Enemy," said Optimus, quietly. He had already known Unicron was real. Had seen his Horns, had fought for Quintessa in her quest to kill him. But _seeing_ him. Seeing him standing there, towering twice even Quintessa's titanic height, was dread personified. Not even the Matrix in his chest could completely rid him of the creeping chill running up his spine, or the fear he felt in his spark. What he saw before him was _evil_. Evil beyond anything he had faced before.

But then he was gone, along with his army.

As was Quintessa and hers. And the endless field of debris in the sky. The countless bodies on the ground. Even the planet itself. He and Stormreign now stood within an empty expanse of white paneled flooring.

"Forgive me for… Retreating," Stormreign said slowly. "War follows that memory. It is… Not something I wish to relive."

The Prime understood well enough the horrors of war, but to wish to forget entirely? He could not imagine that level of carnage, even after seeing the size of the factions involved. "There is nothing to forgive," he said.

Stormreign nodded once, a gesture of thanks. Then their white surroundings faded, and they stood on the bridge of a ship on a scale hard to quantify. Its ceiling was miles in height, and its walls were equally distant apart. The floor and walls were semi-transparent, white-blue energy which appeared both solid and etheric. Platinum runes of Primic littered them, seeming to shift and flow as if they were liquid, their meaning changing along with their shape. Quintessa stood at one side of the bridge, gazing out of the wall-window hybrid while the past Knights stood at her feet. The war-torn planet loomed outside, torn asunder by something that left it as half a world, along with the drifting husks of hundreds of thousands of cruiser-sized vessels.

"Once the battle was over," Stormreign said. "Quintessa brought our survivors aboard her vessel, and us, the Knights, to the bridge. Here, we laid witness to her power."

Quintessa's hands glowed, and she raised them toward the planet outside.

At first, nothing happened.

Then the planet moved.

It did not move quickly, nor suddenly. But slowly. Gradually. A speed that appeared slow to the optic, yet in reality was beyond that of any projectile weapon.

The debris field around the sundered world impacted the planet's surface as it passed, creating countless, flashing explosions across its surface, each one representing megatons of energy violently released all at once. Destroyed starships shifted with it, slaved to the planet's gravity even as Quintessa _moved_ the celestial body. They impacted each other in orbit, fragmenting into innumerable bits and pieces that trailed behind or moved around the planet until a virtual trail extended behind it. A trail millions of miles long, and made from the bones of trillions.

It was a planet made a comet, and a comet made by a god.

"She set Unicron and his World to wander," Stormreign said. "This was the last I saw of that death-ridden waste. Of that Devil and his Darkness."

Optimus could not speak. What he saw before him did not make sense to his mind. He could quantify the size of the world, the number of ships that had orbited it. But he could not quantify this—this movement of a _world_ without use of a Space Bridge. The sheer _power_ behind the gesture, the _ease_ in which she did it. He could not wrap his CPU around it.

"I was much the same, when I saw this," Stormreign said, tone faintly amused. "Even now, what she did then makes me feel so very _small_. It was the first Wonder she showed us, but it was far from the last, or even the greatest. Come, there is more you must see."

Everything blurred once more, but the image of Quintessa standing there, flaming, glowing hands held out toward a world, _willing_ it to move, stayed with Optimus.

 _How_ had they not fallen against her?

* * *

Daytrader fell with grace. Or so he thought.

He dropped from the edge of the stairs and landed on a solid surface—metal, or so the nearby chemlight showed—and fell to his servos and knee-joints. He couldn't see anything beyond the chemlight, so dark was this pit they had found.

Daytrader picked himself up and moved with his servos held out, making sure he didn't run straight into a wall outside the chemlight's radius. He stopped after taking just one step into the dark. Wouldn't be well to avoid being landed on, only to step right off a cliff he couldn't see.

Mere moments after he moved, there came a great _boom_ as something more than twice Daytrader's mass hit the floor. Metalhead had joined him. The sound of his landing reverberated in the space around them, echoing in a strange, muted manner. Like sound being strangled by liquid, only without the liquid.

Something about it made him nervous.

Shortly after, two more—albeit lighter— _booms_ sounded out as Cycler and Raze hit the floor. Both created similar, watery echos.

"Damn dark down here, Boss," Cycler said, and his voice sounded like three—the main one, which Daytrader could place, and two quiet versions to their left and right, which he could not. The last was deeper than the first two, twisting sound into something stranger. More ominous.

"And _weird_ ," Raze added, voicing Daytrader's exact thought. "Never heard an echo like that."

Daytrader looked up. Far above them, distant and dim, was the entrance they managed to open. It was a hatch, a stone-like hatch of jet black rock. A winding stairway had been beneath it, leading down into this pit. That stairway ended a hundred feet above their helms.

But had they really walked _all that way_? He could barely see any light up there. Surely, they hadn't walked for more than a klick or two. Or had it been a breem?

"We need more light," he said, then frowned. He didn't like how his voice sounded, either. That third echo…

Raze took another chemlight and cracked it carefully, mindful of the fact they'd crafted the tools from human lights. Her chemlight glowed yellow, and illuminated an area thirty feet in radius.

It revealed nought but more floor. Smooth, shineless black floor.

"Metalhead, Cycler."

They replied by cracking their own lights, their blue and green joining and extending Raze's yellow torch.

More floor. Lots more. All black, seeming to suck in the dim glow of their lights, rendering them so small, so weak, against the seemingly impenetrable darkness surrounding them.

Raze looked left, then right. "I don't think I like this place…"

Neither did he.

"Ah, don't be such a sparkling," Cycler said, laugh echoing thrice, each time gaining depth. His smile didn't last long, despite his bravado. "Where to, Boss?"

Daytrader looked into the darkness, and found he didn't want to go anywhere. He wanted to be back up at the top of the stairs. Under the sky. In the light. Away from this deep, deep dark. And its echo.

But that option was gone. After all, there _was_ money to be made here.

He chose a direction at random. "There. We go there."

Metalhead and Cycler moved in the direction he pointed. Raze hesitated, then went after them. Then Daytrader cracked his own chemlight and followed them.

* * *

Within a blink, Optimus and Stormreign were standing on Cybertron's surface, but not the Cybertron he knew. This Cybertron was a utopia. Littered with countless, twisting spires that dwarfed the Hall of Records, its streets filled with more people than Optimus had seen before. The sky was filled with transports, drones and Seekers flying from place to place, ferrying goods and people wherever they needed to go.

Beyond the sky, there were space stations. Stations ten times the size of any from his own time. Some were spheres of mirrored glass, barely visible in orbit. Others were great cylinders with monumental _arms_ many miles in length and width. Still others were circular disks, home to space ports large enough to house thousands of ships at once. All stations, be they spheres, cylinders or disks, were works of art. Pictures of beauty, grace and power all at once.

A mirror image of Quintessa below.

She was directly ahead of he and Stormreign, her mere presence otherworldly. She was smaller than before, though still no less than thrice the height of even Devastator. Less a colossus and more a giant. Her Staff gave off a constant blue glow, bathing all around her in soft light. Her eyes no longer burned with fire, but instead radiated every positive emotion he'd ever felt.

Around her, the Knights stood guard; and around them, an innumerable crowd gathered round, gazing up at the goddess in amazement. Reverence. Sparklings sat on the shoulders of adults and looked upon her with awe. Optimus could _feel_ their wonder.

"Once Unicron fell," Stormreign said. "Quintessa constructed our home."

"Cybertron," Optimus said, tearing his gaze from Quintessa to marvel at the city around them. It made Iacon look small.

"That was not what she called it," Stormreign said, tone correcting. He gestured to the streets around them, filled with Cybertronians and dozens of other races of various shapes, size, colors and states. Some were organic, some were not. "Quintessa meant our world to be a hub between worlds. Peoples. A nexus of culture and understanding. Economic might and political affluence. Of science and those beyond such things. She called it Kor'a Vitus—Home to All. For all were welcome under her care."

As he spoke, their surroundings changed. Not at once, but steadily. A constant, unnatural speed that brought them through time itself. Buildings fell and rose higher. People grew old and faded away, only to be replaced by three new faces. Stations grew larger and grander. Starships were built, retired and replaced. An immense, beautiful palace was built around them, housing stunning gardens and rooms that could contain entire towns and cities. Works of art decorated the walls, depicting events Optimus had read of in the mythology of the Covenant.

And through it all, Quintessa and the Knights remained ageless.

How old _was_ Stormreign?

"My Knights and I became Quintessa's guardians, students, servants. Keepers. She guided us all to an Age of Wonders," Stormreign went on. "We traversed galaxies. Colonized tens of thousands of systems. Encountered hundreds of millions of civilizations. Wherever we went, we were Sovereign. The first to be sought for aid, the last to retreat before a cataclysm. Our Space Bridges evacuated thousands of worlds before the might of supernovas. Our fleets prevented the start of countless wars. Our political will brought peace to corners of space others left to rot. We were…"

Stormreign trailed off, voice growing… Tired? Optimus was not sure.

"Gods?" The Prime offered flatly, unconsciously clenching a fist. He'd known only one who had claimed such a thing.

The ancient Knight shook his helm. "Nay. We were pure. But it would not last."

Suddenly, Stormreign's memory of Quintessa started. Her hauntingly beautiful face contorted, going from serene to panicked to furious all within a blink of an optic, then to a very _mortal_ confusion.

The crowds stilled. None looked brave enough to move, let alone speak. The optics of thousands stared at Quintessa in reverent concern. Concern and _fear_.

The past Stormreign and the Knights stepped in at that point, declaring the palace closed for the cycle so Quintessa could rest. They directed the other security to send people away, then led Quintessa to a closed chamber at the back of the room.

"That was our only warning. The only hint we received that something was wrong."

The Prime turned to Stormreign. "With Quintessa?"

The other mech nodded gravely. "This was the start of her Madness."

They shifted through time again. When they slowed, the palace around them seemed duller. Less clean and lively. There were still crowds, but half of how many there had been. Quintessa was nowhere to be seen, and… And…

His attention went to the center of the immense room he and Stormreign stood in. Where, floating in the air, was a great cube in constant flux. A billion, billion parts always in motion. Always alive. Filling the air with warmth. Comfort. Its silver sides were polished to the point they reflected the floor beneath it, and the Primic runes on its sides blazed with blue fire.

He knew what it was immediately.

"The AllSpark…" Optimus whispered, his breath stolen from him. There was no doubt about it in his mind. Its appearance, the way the Matrix hummed in his chest. He was looking at a younger, brighter AllSpark. One that made the dull silver cube grew up with seem drab in comparison.

"She grew worse over the centi-vorns," Stormreign said. "More prone to bouts of confusion. Memory loss. Even anger. Rage. Eventually, she was too far gone to appear before the public. So, she crafted the AllSpark with a sliver of her own soul."

"That is why the AllSpark always felt…"

"Warm. Understanding. Compassionate. Loving."

Optimus gave Stormreign a look.

"We Knights served Quintessa herself, but we all felt the AllSpark as you have. She meant it to take her place. To be a light to all those without one. To inspire. To care. To impart wisdom without words."

"To continue our species."

Now, Stormreign gave _him_ a look. A look unreadable behind the other mech's mask. "In one way that we could, yes. But it was a fragment. A shell. A mere shadow of its creator. And so we became just so."

Their surroundings changed again. This time, Optimus recognized everything. The building. The walls. The form of the AllSpark. He knew it as the Simfur Temple.

Only, it had a pit in the floor.

A great pit. Immense in size and ornate in design, inlaid with gold depictions of Quintessa as Optimus first saw her: small, with her headdress and jagged armor, her tentacled lower half. People crowded in that pit. Thousands of them. All kneeling with their servos held before their chestplates in a sign of worship, and all optics looking to a grand platform at the head of the pit, in front of the AllSpark.

Quintessa was there, floating looking exactly like her depictions in the pit. Above her, her Staff floated. Behind her, another statue of herself stood in front of the AllSpark; and around her and the pit, Knights stood with their spines straight as soldiers. For the first time since they began moving through his memories, Optimus did not see another version of Stormreign. Or any of the original Knights, for that matter.

"Where were you in this?" He asked the other mech.

"... Away."

The severe tone surprised Optimus, and he glanced at the ancient Knight to find him staring down at the crowd, silent. With his servos held lose, shoulders slumped low. Defeated.

Something was wrong here.

He followed Stormreign's gaze, then felt it himself. The fear in the air. There was a chill among the crowd. A nervousness. Mechs and femmes shook faintly, occasionally giving one another weeping, sorrowful looks. Sparklings tried to hide behind their elders, or tried to lower themselves down, as if to merge with the floor itself. The Knights at the edge of the pit gripped their staves tightly, digits occasionally drumming. Their faceplates expressionless. Stoic. Fierce.

Like soldiers on duty.

He looked to Stormreign. "What is this?"

With a grave whisper, Stormreign said, "What you need to see."

Quintessa raised her hands up above her, toward her Staff, the look on her face calm and tranquil. Her optics running over the crowd below her, mouth set in a ghost of a smile. On the surface, it was the image of peace and welcome. But to Optimus, it was the image of twisted serenity.

The smile on her lips grew wide, and spoke a single word Optimus could not hear.

Then the Knights opened fire.

Their staves were energy weapons, and they used them with honed precision. They fired quickly and calmly. One, two, three per micro-klick. White bolts of hyper-condensed plasma shot forth, impacting the chestplates and helms of those below.

The crowd screamed, their voices crying out in horror. Horror answered by a blast from a staff. The sounds echoed around the Temple, resounding off the walls and to Optimus' audios repeatedly. Screams. Shots. Screams. Shots.

The pit quickly ran blue with energon.

Optimus could only watch, helpless, as innocent lives were snuffed out. As _sparklings_ were cut down without mercy or hesitation. Some poor souls tried to claw their way up the pit walls, only to be disintegrated by acid that some Knights dropped from above. Others attempted to hide amongst the rapidly-growing piles of the deceased, putting over their person the bits and pieces of their brethren. They bought themselves mere moments of life.

It was all over within two klicks. The silence that followed was oppressing.

The entire crowd lay dead before him. Energon pooled at the bottom of the pit in a layer deep enough that the frames of sparklings and small adults were only partially visible. Body parts were scattered, at times all that remained of the person they belonged to.

Despite all the battles he'd fought, despite all the lives he'd taken and seen ended, the sight of the murdered crowd brought nausea to Optimus' tank, yet the Knights did not appear the least bit uncomfortable. Fazed. Remorseful.

These were not the Knights he read of in the legends.

And above those pretender Knights, Quintessa laughed. A long, loud laugh that chilled him and showed the world her true colors.

"This was the moment she became the Mad Goddess," he said, more to himself than Stormreign.

"Regrettably, this was only the most recent in a long line of atrocities I could not bring myself to acknowledge—and it was far from her worst," Stormreign whispered. "There came a cycle we could not convince her she belonged out of sight. She berated us, and became… That. That echo of something infinitely more. She made my Knights her blindly loyal soldiers. Anyone who paid but one Shanix less than her taxes, was tortured. Anyone who dared speak a word against her, anyone who dared not bow before her, was executed, then brought back via the AllSpark and killed again. And again. And she made those Knights believe they were _right_ to do such things."

Stormreign tore himself away from the grisly sight before he and Optimus, and looked to the laughing Quintessa. "Once, I looked at Quintessa and saw everything good in the universe. She was Life, Love, Beauty, Kindness, Compassion, Wisdom. She called herself such things even after the Fall. But you see now, Optimus, she was in fact the Great Deceiver all along."

Time accelerated once more. When it resumed at a standard pace, Optimus was looking at the past Stormreign and the Knights—the true Knights. Those at the beginning with Stormreign and others Optimus felt were familiar yet did not recognize. They stood in a small chamber of silver metal and blue light, in the middle of which floated Quintessa's Staff.

"Eventually, my Knights and I had enough," Optimus' Stormreign said. "One night, I gathered together all those I knew were trustworthy, and we took her Staff—the conduit of her power she had grown to rely on. Those loyal to her did not take kindly to our transgression."

As the past Stormreign took hold of Quintessa's Staff, other groups of Knights entered the chamber from each of its four entryways. Fighting broke out immediately. Knights perished. Energon coated the floor. Brother fought brother.

In the end, the past Stormreign and his Knights stood victorious, but at the cost of half their number. Among those living were the familiar Knights Optimus could not place. It was only when the largest of them, one who towered more than double Optimus' height, picked up a fallen Knight's mace, did he place them.

The Dinobots.

The Dinobots were Knights. Knights that had helped Stormreign steal the Staff. They were even greater legends than he thought.

"Once we had the Staff, we fled, and they followed."

Optimus was suddenly on the surface of Cybertron, again different than he remembered, and the past Knights fought their way through docks and to a familiar ship: the _Knight's Eternal_. It was there, in the middle of a fight, that the past Stormreign and his brothers boarded the ship, while Grimlock and the Dinobots bought them time before fleeing to another ship, an unfamiliar one, and took off themselves.

"In the end, our betrayal ended the lives of hundreds of our fellow Knights, and decimated much of our Library. We lost nearly all alike thinkers. But we succeeded. Our theft of the Staff robbed Quintessa of her full power. In the time that followed, our rebellion, and the records lost in the fighting, led Quintessa to fade away. Vanish from memory. All she left behind was the AllSpark."

"Why?"

"Why what, Brother Optimus?"

"Why did she leave? She still possessed the AllSpark. It had her power, however faint compared to what she once wielded. Why did she leave?"

"Pride, I suspect. She became rather… Full of herself near the end. If she was not the one making something happen, she wanted nothing to do with it. If she were not the one making people scream, she could not be bothered. Without her Staff, she could no longer control the AllSpark. Not fully. It grew without her. Guided and created in ways she did not command. The memory of what she was continued to influence our people, but it was not _her_ in total control."

"That is why she did not stay with the AllSpark."

"And why she did not show herself to the cosmos again until after its destruction."

Not gone, the Prime thought. Altered. Power such as that did not disappear. Or maybe it did.

Oh, Sam…

Optimus looked to Stormreign. "What else can you show me?"

"What do you wish to know?"

"Show m—"

" _PRIME!"_

The voice was startlingly loud, and drove him to instinctively bring a servo to the side of his helm. His comm. Someone had contacted him. Hound, to be exact, but he found he could not reply.

"A moment, Brother," Stormreign said.

At his word, Optimus found himself standing back in the ruined building, facing the real Stormreign once more.

The air was unnaturally still. Still and silent.

Something was wrong.

" _Hound,"_ he said through a link he quickly established. _"Report in. What is wrong?"_

Hound did not answer.

Stormreign looked out into the space where the room's front walls once stood. Optimus did not like the way the ancient Knight froze in place. "Brother…"

Optimus turned.

The crowds were no longer wandering.

They were bowed low. On their knees, helms bowed low to their chestplates. As if unworthy to look up and behold the world. Above them all, just as it had when they first met in the rooom, the _Knight's Temple_ floated in place _._

And from within the _Knight's Temple_ , a white light shone over everything.

* * *

They made a mistake in coming here. A grave mistake.

He didn't fully realize it at first, but he had now. This place… This place didn't make sense. Too quiet, yet too loud at the same time. Their steps and speech still echoed back at them, always three times, yet all they'd found was floor. Endless, shineless black floor all the way back at the end of the chemlight trail they left behind to the surface. How was the sound coming _back_ to them?

Then there was the _feel_ of it. It felt _old_. Too old. But… Earth wasn't old by the universe's reckoning. This was. He'd seen enough ancient things to know that. But never one like this. One so still, dark and… And…

 _Unfriendly_.

He felt like he was being watched. Followed. Twice already, he'd felt as if someone were standing behind him, only to turn and find nothing but that black floor.

It was affecting him. Affecting the others, too—he could tell. This place was _wrong_. The floor was _wrong_. The air was _wrong_. It was all _wrong_.

He should have left after the rest of Raze's haul.

Ahead, Metalhead slowed to a stop, peering into the darkness before them.

"You see something?" Daytrader asked, ignoring the way his voice echoed.

"Maybe," the big mech said. He pointed forward. "That look like stairs to you?"

Daytrader looked along with Cycler and Raze. Ahead, the black floor lowered, and that in itself was an anomaly. He couldn't make out any details. Not in this dark.

"Move up," he said.

They approached the dip in the floor, and found that, indeed, there were stairs. Black stairs that led into another pit, wider than the one at the surface. So wide that their lights didn't come close to lighting up the other side.

Daytrader looked down and noticed something etched into the floor before the top stair. It was black, only slightly brighter than the floor itself, but there _was_ a shape to it. A rune?

And it was not the only one. At the edge of his chemlight's radius, he saw another black rune to the left, and another to the right. Definitely runes, but not anything he could read.

"Who's first?" Cycler asked.

"Not me," Raze said. "We shouldn't even be here. I'm not going down there."

"It's the only thing we've down here," Daytrader said.

"And that's enough for me. We're in a pit. A black, lifeless pit where nothing moves, and now our only way forward is _another_ pit surrounded by black runes carved into the floor. Thank you, but no thank you. I'm not going in there." She looked back the way they came, at the long line of chemlights of where they had been already. "Those lights won't last much longer. We get back now, we might be able to put together a cable. Get back to the surface."

"I hate to say it, but this place isn't worth it," Cycler said. "I'm with her."

Metalhead shifted from one pede to the other. "It's kinda creepy."

"Alright then, expedition over." Daytrader backed away from the second pit and walked toward the most recent chemlight they left behind. "Let's… Go…"

The lights were going out.

From back to the entrance to where they stood, one by one they were going out. No warning. No gradual fade. They just _went out_.

That wasn't natural.

"We need to go right now," Raze whispered, voice an urgent hiss.

"Fresh lights," he said. "Now."

Three quiet _cracks_ sounded out behind him as the others activated fresh chemlights, dropping the old ones to the floor.

"Into the pit."

He waited for them to start down, never taking his optics off the trail of lights. There weren't many left. Just ten more. Ten lights between he and total, complete darkness. And whatever it was that hid in it.

Daytrader reached the top stair and dropped his light there, then cracked a fresh one and followed the others.

No one said a word as they descended. And no one wanted to. The wall was to their left, and upon it Daytrader saw more black runes. More symbols he could not read or understand. To their right was empty space. A curtain of black that could not be pierced. And before them were stairs leading into that darkness.

He felt a chill, and looked back up the stairs.

The chemlights they left behind were already out. Even his, at the top of the stairs, had died.

And what had killed it stood where it had been. He couldn't see it. Or hear it. Smell it. But he _felt_ it. Felt its icy presence. Felt its anger. Its malice. Felt it watching him. Watching all of them.

Watching, unceasingly, as they traversed deeper and deeper into the pit.

Into what was becoming Hell itself.

* * *

The world was louder when it was dead.

There had been wind. A faint shift as that invisible force made its will known. The planet's bones would creak. The voices of the deceased haunted those of the living. Reminding them of ancient failures and atrocities.

There were none of those things now.

Optimus ran through the crowd, weaving back and forth around the bowing crowd. There was no order or pattern to their ranks; they had fallen to their knees wherever they had stood. It made travel by alt-mode impossible, and the engines in his pedes had not been repaired. That left running. His pounding pedes and the beat of his spark in his audios were the only sounds he heard, and even they were muted. Distant. Insignificant compared to the stillness around him. To the windless air.

To the Light.

How had this happened? How long had they explored Stormreign's memories?

Where were his Autobots?

He tried them again, _"Optimus to all Autobots—do you read me?"_

The universal channel was as silent as the crowd.

Optimus uttered a rare curse within his mind, and redoubled his efforts.

Behind him, Stormreign followed. Judging from the mech's silence, and his presence, he was having as much contacting his Knights as Optimus was his Autobots. It was a troubling sign.

The crowd thinned as they approached the _Knight's Temple_ , but the Light within it grew stronger. Optimus found himself holding a servo out to block the Light, just so he could see what was in front of him. He wanted nothing more than to transform and get there faster, but he knew Stormreign had no such luxury. He would not go without the ancient Knight. Not when neither of them could reach anyone else.

They got below the ship, away from the Light's blinding touch. From there, Optimus could see how far the Light went. How bright it truly was. It covered _everything_. The crowds, streets, the buildings. He even saw it reflect off passing debris in space.

They reached the deployed cargo lift under the ship, a wide platform able to transport more than one hundred kilotons of cargo at one time. Stormreign hit the control, and their ascent began.

"I am afraid, Optimus. Afraid of what I fear this is."

The casual confession did not surprise Optimus; he shared Stormreign's fear, even as the Matrix tried to comfort him. "Do we have a chance?"

"If this is _her_? If Quintessa has woken again?"

"Yes."

Stormreign took out his blade. His weapon that, Optimus knew, had felled thousands of enemies over the course of his life. When he spoke, it was not the voice of an ancient warrior. Of a fearless mech. Of a warrior who fought in the bloodiest conflict Optimus had ever seen.

"We will not have a prayer."

The lift finished its journey. The interior of the _Knight's Temple_ was lit entirely with the Light, forcing their gaze down to the maze of rooms on the floor. It was even quieter than outside. Yet the air hummed. Filled with an energy Optimus could not identify. It felt powerful. Powerful beyond measure.

They started forward, Stormreign in the lead. They took their steps carefully, quietly. With the caution of rookie soldiers and the experience of battle-hardened warriors. Slowly, they made their way across the floor and toward the source of the Light.

On the trek, they passed Quintessa's cell. It was destroyed. Vaporized. The walls, the cold plasma bindings, were _gone_. What remained were fragments of the turrets.

Their fears had been realized.

"We are too late." Stormreign's voice was but a breath. A whisper already defeated. Then he nodded to himself, and stood straighter. "We will not run from this. Are you willing, Brother?"

A part of Optimus—a quiet, dormant part—was not. It did not want to fight. It did not want to go and face certain doom. But that part of him did not define him. Not anymore.

He nodded. Just once. And that was enough.

They moved toward such a fate, leaving behind Quintessa's cell to approach the Light. The source was not far—just around a right bend and a left. They stopped at the wall just before the last turn. The Light was so strong here it hurt Optimus' optics, even when he looked away. The air _shook_ with that energy he felt. And it was more than just power. It was a _feeling_. A feeling of… What, exactly? He couldn't tell.

Stormreign leaned against the wall, sword held tightly in his servo. He took a deep breath, then let it out. His visor turned to Optimus. "To death."

He charged.

The ancient Knight moved with an unexpected ferocity that left Optimus catching up. By the time he reached the corner, Stormreign's battle cry echoed around it.

Then was silenced.

Optimus rounded the corner. The Light blinded him, hurt him, stopped him in his tracks.

Then it didn't.

He opened his optics.

And there they were.

There, the Knights knelt, helms bowed, one knee on the ground, one servo placed against their chestplates. There, his Autobots did the same—apart from Bumblebee, who stood frozen in place, cannon deployed, surrounded in a cocoon of white energy. There Stormreign stood, frozen as Bumblebee was, sword raised but body still as a statue.

And there she was.

She was turned away from him, gazing out at the bowing crowd and destroyed city. She was like he'd seen her in Stormreign's memories, yet she was more all the same. She was shorter. Scaled to the _Temple_. Her cloak of stars _moved_. Shined, dimmed, became fire. As if those stars were _alive_ on their own. Her Light was brighter, stronger, and even more soothing all the same. Her Staff was white, as pure white as she, and almost organic in its design.

" _I remember much…"_

Her voice was music. A wondrous, enchanting melody containing every positive attribute, and every imaginable comfort. It was the inspiration behind a carrier's love. A friend's compassion. A lover's touch. It was the reason to seek peace. To show kindness. To create.

It pierced him down to his soul.

" _I remember the War of Wars, and the Darkness it brought. I remember the Time of Wrath, and the Days Without Stars. I remember the Fire of Creation, and the Time of Awe. I remember a Son, not from I, yet of Me all the same. I remember the Time of Strife, and the Breaking of Harmony. I remember the Time of Mourning, and the Glory that grew in spite of it. I remember a Time to Sleep, and a Time to Wake…"_

She turned, and his optics burned, as if looking directly upon her magnificence were a violation of Law. An act that his mortal gaze could not do. But he could not look away, for her optics locked on his. Sun and flame and Light. Older than Creation, and majesty beyond words.

" _But I do not remember_ you _."_

Twice, she tapped the end of her Staff against the floor. Twice, the thunder of the heavens sounded out. Twice, a transparent wave of her Light extended from the end of her Staff, bathing the world in Light. In command. Authority.

In spite of himself, in spite of what she had done to him last time he was on Cybertron, in spite of the frantic pulses of the Matrix, Optimus went to one knee.

Willingly.

" _I am Solus,"_ she said, and the Light highlighted her every perfect feature. Fanned the flames of her eyes and the radiance within. Brightened the stars of her cloak. Turned her voice to crystal and steel—clear yet strong. _"The Smith of Innovation, the Prime of Life, the Maker of Suns, the Wielder of Cybertron. Who is this Son of Primus who stands before me?"_

* * *

The stairs led to a chamber.

The chamber was wide and tall, and—shockingly—lit. Hovering, circular torches hung in the air, illuminating their surroundings with purple-black flames. The floor and walls were black and inlaid with faint red light. The inlays formed images, depictions of events, places, people who Daytrader had no way of identifying. There were twelve such images.

But it was the pool in the middle of the room that commanded his attention.

It was thirteen-sided. A perfect triskaidecagon. At each side, there was a black rune and an inlaid symbol. And within the pool itself, there was a black liquid that devoured all light. All thought. All reasoning.

They shouldn't be here.

He knew that as soon as they entered the chamber and saw that pool. The moment he saw the pool, something instinctive triggered within Daytrader. An ancient and inactive panic, reserved only for the greatest danger. It froze him. Seemed to stop his spark. Urged him to _run_ , or die while he could. He didn't need to look at the others to know they felt the same.

He opened his mouth to order them back up the stairs, but no sound came from him. His throat was closed. His mind misplacing the information needed to speak.

The stairs began to slide into the wall.

Silent panic gripped them all. They flung themselves back up the stairs two, three at a time, trying to race away of the vanishing pathway.

Almost as one, the found their next step meeting empty air, and they fell. Fell right back into the chamber, against the dark floor, their impacts sending triple-echoes that sounded up toward the top of the pit.

His existence became despair. He wanted to cry, to weep like a hatchling. But he couldn't. That, too, had been sucked out of him, stolen away with his calm, his aspiration, his sense of control.

All he could manage was a tiny, pathetic, "No."

" _No."_

" _No."_

" _ **No."**_

The echoes were _right in his audio_. Each one louder, louder and deeper than the last. He spun on his back, afraid of what made the sound yet unable to resist the instinct to face a threat.

A shadow stood there.

It was vaguely shaped like a Cybertronian, only elongated. _Stretched_ to the point it was taller than Metalhead. Its limbs were longer than they should be, even at its height. It had no optics. No face. No discernible features other than its long limbs and the presence of a perpetual darkness blanketing it like a permanent silhouette.

" _ **No."**_

" _ **No."**_

" _ **No."**_

" _ **No."**_

Daytrader whipped around, and saw other shadows, identical to the first, surrounding them. They repeated his single word in deep, distorted voices that were harsh and angry in any tone or volume of voice.

He counted twelve in all.

" _ **Come closer…"**_

The new voice brought ice to Daytrader's veins. It was deeper, even more twisted than the others, and two-toned. As if housing more than one person. It shook the air with its strength, and vibrated the very floor beneath them with its bass.

The shadows brought them toward the pool, gripping them with cold, lifeless claws and unceremoniously dumping them at the foot of the pool.

Out of the pool, a giant servo emerged, wider than Daytrader's entire torso. It was the blackest black, and bore six digits. Behind it, the rest of the limb appeared, then the body it was attached to.

The being before them was terror incarnate. It was proportionately half again Metalhead's build, and more than twice his height despite being only partially out of the pool. Darkness coated it like a cloak, sucking in the light of the room. Six great horns adorned the crown on its head head, and its eyes... Its eyes were crimson fire. Hatred and rage and violence mixed together.

Its presence killed any semblance of hope he felt.

" _ **Tell me…"**_ It rumbled, its fiery eyes looking over all of them. _**"Did they do it?"**_

None of them answered.

" _ **I've been sleeping for a long,**_ **long** _ **time—but I still dreamed. I witnessed. I saw the Prodigal. But now I don't. You will show me why."**_

Liquid from the pool rose up to the floor and flowed its way toward them. It focused on Raze, crawling up her servos, over her shoulder-joints. She opened her mouth to scream, only for the liquid to pour in and muffle it. In a blink of an optic, she was completely covered. Nothing but a rough, vaguely-shaped flow of fluid that kept its shape.

The titan scoffed, the short, simple sound still powerful enough to shake the very air. _**"Too new. No memory."**_

The liquid collapsed, but Raze was gone.

It went to Metalhead next, then Cycler. They suffered Raze's fate. All while Daytrader sat completely still, so terrified that he could barely register the loss of his companions. So numb to the world that he blocked out their screams.

Then the liquid came to him, and the titan's full attention fell on him. _**"You're the one, aren't you? The one I**_ **smelled** _ **. The one with the answers."**_

The liquid covered him.

It didn't hurt. Not at first. It made his body numb for a few moments, but the longer it was there, the more that numbness turned to burning. A terrible burn that got worse and worse and worse.

Before his vision, he saw his own memories playing out, as if they were being projected in front of him. His time as a thief on Cybertron. His scaving cycles after the War. Then his time on Earth.

It was the Earth memories that kept playing out. Kept repeating. Like the operator on the project had a favorite film, and kept wanting to watch it. Only the operator had a searing knife, and kept winding back the footage with it. Over and over and over again.

By the time it was over, Daytrader could barely think. Could barely feel. Dimly, he registered that he was back in the chamber. Dimly, he felt the liquid lowered to his chestplates. But couldn't register the significance of it.

The titan growled. _**"They**_ **did** _ **do it. The most important individual in their history, and the humans kill it. A waste of existence. But no matter. I will simply need to do it the hard way."**_

Its attention went back to Daytrader. _**"Your information was valuable to me, nomad. I grant you the mercy of dying quickly."**_

The liquid covered him again, and he felt it burn more than ever. He felt his body being to dissolve. Turn into more of the very liquid that covered him.

Through the black liquid, the titan growled again. _**"Your children have grown weak, Solus. How did I lose to such filth?"**_

Daytrader felt part of his spark casing begin to dissolve.

Then he felt nothing else.

* * *

 **There we have it. Lots and lots of info dumping (note within a note: I almost said "info dumbing" before I went through this right before posting), but it was info dumping with plot. Plot that I actually quite enjoy. Just a matter of finding the time to park butt in a seat and write. Hard to do when you're working a bunch and have half a dozen active projects.**

 **This chapter's credit song is "Really Slow Motion - Cosmic Cloud" This track has a dark feel to it - a sense of foreboding doom. I believe it fits well with the ending scene.**

 **Thank you all for reading. If you enjoyed reading, please share or recommend this to a friend or friends. And if you _really_ enjoyed reading, please leave a comment. They are the lifeblood of all writers, and they do not take long to leave.**

 **See you soon.**


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